I’m going to admit a thing that I feel some guilt about and that might cause people to hate me. And I’m truly so sorry for this, but I can’t deny hard truths. Here it is—I really didn’t care for the cities I visited in Switzerland. In fact, I’d say they might be the cities I’ve liked least on my trip so far. That being said, I only visited 2 cities in Switzerland for just 1 night each, so I don’t put much stock in my hardly-earned opinion, and you shouldn’t either. But that first impression can be hard to shake.
I knew Switzerland would be expensive—the most expensive country I’ll visit on my trip for sure. Because of this, I only planned 2 nights there, and in those 2 nights/3 days, I had to budget almost as much as I budgeted for a whole week in the Balkans. I figured a couple of days were enough for a quick glimpse, and if I loved it, I’d plan to come back one day after Chewie gets famous on Instagram and starts making me millions. I arrived in Zurich when it was approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit, so things were looking bleak from the beginning. I was traveling from Strasbourg, so it was going to be hard for any new place to follow how much I loved it there. My first impression of Zurich was in the train station when it took me an HOUR to find a bathroom, learn that I had to pay $2 for the bathroom with exact change, find an ATM, buy a pastry to get change, and return to the bathroom to finally pee. Before I even emerged from the station, I was sweaty, and my bags felt like they weighed 80 pounds instead of the 40 they actually weigh. I just wanted to sit in private and air-conditioned silence, but instead I went in search of a train ticket to Italy.
I’d decided that the only thing I’d splurge on in Switzerland (besides as much chocolate as my stomach could hold) was a ticket on the Gotthard Panorama Express—a boat ride/scenic train combo that would take me through the Alps to Italy. I could have taken the same route for free with my Eurail pass on a regular commuter train, but my Eurail pass was supposed to get me a half-off discount on the scenic express train (the one with the glass-domed top and fancy first class seats), so as an obsessive train enthusiast, I decided it would be worth the money. But I couldn’t figure out how to buy the ticket online. I waited in line at the information counter, praying the tickets weren’t sold out, only to be told I needed to go to a different information office. The second information office told me it would be a 45-minute wait to talk to someone. I left the station and decided to try again later, and this is when I first saw Zurich.
Downtown Zurich was weird. There were individual buildings that were pretty, but as a whole, the style and character of the town just felt generically expensive. I wanted quaint hillside goats and stunning mountain views, but instead I found myself in a city offering me a $4 glazed donut from Dunkin Donuts. I wanted something unique to Switzerland for lunch, and the cheapest thing I found was a raclette, which consisted of 4 small new potatoes covered in a pile of melted cheese with, inexplicably, a couple of mini pickles on the side. It left a lot to be desired. It was also $19.
I went back to the train station to try again to get my Panorama Express ticket, and this time I waited in line for 45 minutes to talk to two young workers who had no idea how to help me. They sent me away with vague instructions to try again online. A lightning storm hit while on my way to the hostel, and I hid under the awning of an office building for half an hour feeling annoyed at Switzerland for taunting me.
The next day, I arrived back at the station 2 hours early to try, yet again, to buy my train/boat ticket. The very nice worker I waited in line to talk to felt sure she knew what to do, and I ended up with 2 tickets for the following day. I headed on to spend my second night in Switzerland in Lucerne. And honestly, downtown Lucerne was cute. It had more character than Zurich, plus it was 20 degrees colder, which makes everything more pleasant. But it was still missing something for me. It still felt generic and lacking in something—history or intrigue or spirit… something. I ate one restaurant meal, which was admittedly delicious, in a French restaurant that charged me $30 for a small bowl of ratatouille and a 1/3 cup of potato wedges. I ate my other meals prepackaged from a grocery store. I was not sad to leave.
The next morning, I got to the station hours early again to try to confirm that my ticket was, in fact, correct. It wasn’t. Or it half was, but apparently I was overcharged for something and not charged at all for something else. The man who finally set it all straight said to me, “Oh no, it’s not possible to buy this online. I don’t know why anyone told you that you could.” I got on the boat armed with 4 different tickets and reservation documents, and I was just ready to be in Italy.
It was overcast, and I couldn’t see much from the boat. With my second-class ticket, I couldn’t sit inside in the fancy dining room, so I sat outside in the cold and ate my little salad I’d brought with me, feeling like the poor passengers on the Titanic. It took a couple of hours to reach the town where we’d get on our train, and I was fearing that I might have wasted my money. But the second I got on the train, I knew it had been worth every penny after all. The Gotthard is the most beautiful train I’ve ever seen. They don’t have different classes on the train, so every seat is a first class seat the size of a business class airline seat. There were little gifts for us—a fancy pen and postcards (the staff collected them at the end of the ride and mailed them anywhere in the world for you for free), a map, chocolate. There was a glass dome instead of regular windows, and since I had a whole row to myself, I had nearly a 360-panorama view. If you wanted more, you could go to the middle car on the train where the windows opened so you could take photos without a glare. But of course, the best part was the view. THIS was the Switzerland I’d been looking for. Here were the Alps and tiny villages of church steeples and cows and babbling streams. And as I sat there glued to the window and thinking about how maybe I loved Switzerland after all, I realized that I’d done my visit all wrong. Of course, I couldn’t expect Switzerland to provide me with beautiful views and fresh air and nature when I hadn’t allowed the time or money to seek it. If I’d used Zurich and Lucerne as bases for daytrips to the mountains, my opinion would have been entirely different. I caught the tiniest glimpse of the places but essentially missed the whole point.
I’d like to go back to Switzerland one day to find the bits that were waiting for me outside of the cities. This is even possible to do affordably if you are a person who is comfortable camping, which I had neither the appropriate equipment nor skills to feel good about attempting alone. But you should go to Switzerland and immediately tell me how much you love it so that I know for sure that I need to try again and do it right.
What not to miss:
Gotthard Panorama Express, or really any of the scenic trains in Switzerland. There are a lot to choose from, but be sure to do one. It’s worth the money, even at full price.
The chocolate. All of it. Buy piles of it.
The hostels were actually NOT outrageously priced and were perfectly pleasant. I stayed in Meininger Hostel in Zurich and Backpackers Hostel in Lucerne.
Go do something in the mountains. A hike, a tram ride, paragliding, anything. I didn’t and should have.
More chocolate.
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